Product Description

Initially developed in Japan by Nintendo as a computer game, Pokémon swept the globe in the late 1990s. Based on a narrative in which a group of children capture, train, and do battle with over a hundred imaginary creatures, Pokémon quickly diversified into an array of popular products including comic books, a TV show, movies, trading cards, stickers, toys, and clothing. Pokémon eventually became the top grossing children's product of all time. Yet the phenomenon fizzled as quickly as it had ignited. By 2002, the Pokémon craze was mostly over. Pikachu’s Global Adventure describes the spectacular, complex, and unpredictable rise and fall of Pokémon in countries around the world.

In analyzing the popularity of Pokémon, this innovative volume addresses core debates about the globalization of popular culture and about children’s consumption of mass-produced culture. Topics explored include the origins of Pokémon in Japan’s valorization of cuteness and traditions of insect collecting and anime; the efforts of Japanese producers and American marketers to localize it for foreign markets by muting its sex, violence, moral ambiguity, and general feeling of Japaneseness; debates about children’s vulnerability versus agency as consumers; and the contentious question of Pokémon’s educational value and place in school. The contributors include teachers as well as scholars from the fields of anthropology, media studies, sociology, and education. Tracking the reception of Pokémon in Japan, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Israel, they emphasize its significance as the first Japanese cultural product to enjoy substantial worldwide success and challenge western dominance in the global production and circulation of cultural goods.

Contributors. Anne Allison, Linda-Renée Bloch, Helen Bromley, Gilles Brougere, David Buckingham, Koichi Iwabuchi, Hirofumi Katsuno, Dafna Lemish, Jeffrey Maret, Julian Sefton-Green, Joseph Tobin, Samuel Tobin, Rebekah Willet, Christine Yano

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #175986 in Books
• Published on: 2004
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

Review
"The contributors to this volume are the smartest scholars working today in the areas of global media and children's media. This book tells an entertaining and surprising tale of how the little Japanese Pokemon transformed children's culture and global media economics. The changes that Pikachu wrought are only the beginning of fascinating new trends in role-playing games, video games, cartoons and toys and the accelerated spread of such fads via the Internet." Ellen Seiter, author of Sold Separately: Children and parents in consumer culture "I took a peek at the table of contents for Pikachu's Global Adventure, then read a little of the introduction, and the next thing I knew I was deep, deep in the book and didn't want to stop. The writing was that engaging, the information and arguments that compelling."--Henry Jenkins, coeditor of Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture "The contributors to this volume are the smartest scholars working today in the areas of global media and children's media. This book tells an entertaining and surprising tale of how the little Japanese Pokemon transformed children's culture and global media economics. The changes that Pikachu wrought are only the beginning of fascinating new trends in role-playing games, video games, cartoons, and toys and the accelerated spread of such fads via the Internet."--Ellen Seiter, author of Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture

From the Back Cover
“I took a peek at the table of contents for Pikachu’s Global Adventure, then read a little of the introduction, and the next thing I knew I was deep, deep in the book and didn’t want to stop. The writing was that engaging, the information and arguments that compelling.”—Henry Jenkins, coeditor of Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture

About the Author
Joseph Tobin is the Nadine Mathis Basha Professor of Early Childhood Education at Arizona State University.

Joseph Tobin is the Nadine Mathis Basha Professor of Early Childhood Education at Arizona State University.

Customer Reviews

Great book
The previous reviewer must have been brain dead herself when she read the book. There is no other way she could have so completely misread this text. The authors are not opponents of Pokemon -- as if that was even the point. In excerpting the statements from Tobin about the "evil" empire of Pokemon, she completely misquotes him. He CLEARLY argues in his introduction that this represents one of the perspectives on Pokemon and then goes on to lay out other perspectives. In the chapter about anti-Pokemon websites, the author is describing the discourse of these websites, not advocating for them. In fact, the author describes these as "moral panics". A moral panic is a misplaced fear that sweeps a society. If this reviewer knew anything at all about the scholarship of the people represented in this book or about the language of cultural studies, she would realize that her reading of them as children's pop culture haters is absurd. I DO use chapters from this book in my children's media studies class exactly because it represents thoughtful and sophisticated scholarship. To look at the complicated ways the Pokemon as one representative of children's popular culture circulates both as part of the global economy and as part of the childhood identity economy, I recommend this book.